UNIT 1 TEXT AND CONTEXT - eGyanKosh

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Text and Context:

Reading and

Interpreting A Text UNIT 1 TEXT AND CONTEXT: READING AND

INTERPRETING A TEXT⁎

Structure

1.0 Objectives

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Why We Read Texts? Why We Re-Read Texts?

1.3 Strategies of Interpretation

1.4 Meanings and Contexts

1.5 Different Schools of Interpretation

1.5.1 Marxian

1.5.2 Totalitarian

1.5.3 Psychoanalytic

1.5.4 Feminist

1.5.5 Straussian

1.5.6 Postmodernist

1.5.7 Cambridge ‘New History’

1.6 Mythologies of Reading a Classic Text

1.6.1 Mythology of Doctrine

1.6.2 Mythology of Coherence

1.6.3 Mythology of Prolepsis

1.7 Let Us Sum Up

1.8 References

1.9 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

1.0 OBJECTIVES

In this unit you will be helping students in understanding the significance of

reading a text. It is explained why the act of interpretation is inevitable in reading

a text. The role of text and the context in which that text is produced are taken

into account to explain the process of reading and interpreting a text. Different

schools of interpretation are also discussed. All this will help to understand how

political theory depends on the act of reading and re-reading texts.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Terence Ball started thinking about the role of reading and interpreting a text in

political theory for questions raised by scholars in this regard. He highlighted

⁎ Dr. Rashmi Gopi, Assistant Professor, Miranda House, University of Delhi

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some basic questions raised to political theorists. The first question raised was:

why it was that scholars specializing in political theory continued to write about

the ‘great thinkers’ of the past. The second question raised was: why do we

bother to devise (or to read) this or that interpretation instead of going straight to

the source and seeing what the author has to say? In this unit we will be

deliberating upon various aspects of reading and interpreting a text to answer

these questions. In the next section, we will be discussing why we read texts.

1.2 WHY WE READ TEXTS? WHY WE RE-READ

TEXTS?

We read texts to connect with contemporary concerns. We engage with questions

of freedom, justice and political participation. The search for solutions to

contemporary problems in a given society forces one to read texts and derive

meanings out of it. The process of reading and re-reading brings in multi-cultural

understandings, especially moving beyond ‘white men’s interpretation’ which

has dominated political theory as a discipline for long. These new readings and

their interpretations from a set of scholars beyond the boundaries of white

skinned male scholars include the voice of different races, sexualities, religion

and regions. Thus enriching the field of political theory itself. As Terence Ball is

one of the leading scholars dealing with the question of reading texts, let us see

what he thought about the act. Ball believed that the process of interpretation is

inevitable and necessary in reading. But this act of interpretation is a deadly

process. For instance, one can even get killed for a particular interpretation if it

goes against the existing laws or religious sentiments. Therefore, the act of

interpretation has to be exercised through extreme caution. He understood the

significance of interpretation as an effort to find the true meaning of the

text/author. Ball cited the thought of Heidegger on significance interpretation as

an ‘ontological category’. Interpretation was about dealing with the nature of

being. It was about showing the relations between the concepts and categories in

a subject area or domain. Similarly, Gadamer gave importance to the act of

interpretation as ‘ontological necessity’. According to Gadamer, the world we

live in and the texts we read are already invested with meanings. We are born

into a world of meanings and with the help of language we speak and traditions

we inherit, we try to understand the world. According to Gadamer, we begin our

journey of understanding/interpreting with a particular standpoint (influenced by

a particular historicity) but at the end of understanding, we may alter the initial

prejudices and assumptions about the given meanings. Therefore, the act of

interpretation is contextual and dynamic. In the process, one widens the horizon

of understanding, seeing common threads of thought even with those who we

disagree with. For Gadamer, the art of interpretation is an essential part of the art

of living the life of a human being.

Terence Ball explained the fact that interpretations are based on meanings

already understood in a given context. Ball cited the example of a man with

blood-stained knife in hand. For an interpreter who is not aware of the particular

context may interpret this person as a murderer. But if the interpreter is aware of

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Interpreting A Text

the context as that of a butcher-shop, then the person with the blood-stained knife

is understood as a butcher. Here the scene is same, but how one interprets is

connected with the awareness of context and pre-given meanings. According to

Terence Ball, a good interpretation diminishes strangeness and toughness

between different set of people with plural contexts. However, interpretations

also have a scope to produce misunderstandings. A bad interpretation can lead to

confusion and chaos between people. But one thing is clear that there is no

neutral interpretation. Interpretation is always by someone with some purpose

and pre-given assumptions.

Check Your Progress Exercise 1

Note: i) Use the space given below for your answer.

ii) Check your progress with the model answer given at the end of

the unit.

1. Explain the concept of ‘ontological necessity’ given by Gadamer.

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1.3 STRATEGIES OF INTERPRETATION

According to Quentin Skinner (belonging to Cambridge New Historians school

of thought), the meaning of a text is something which lies within a text and is

discovered or recovered by the person who reads it. The meaning of a text is

something which is created by its author and given to a text in the process of

writing it. Skinner is committed to the principle of ‘authorial intentionalism’, that

is, intention of the author. This process of creating meaning and giving it to a text

is carried out intentionally by the author. The authors of texts have full self-

conscious awareness of (and control over) their own intentions and hence also,

the meaning of the texts they produce. This is an approach which privileges the

standpoint of the author of a text. It maintains that those who are seeking to

understand a text cannot afford to ignore the intentions of its author when writing

it. It is a necessary condition for the success of the interpretive enterprise.

Contrary to the above view, the conventional view of the post-structuralists

highlights the fact that the meaning of a text is created by and given to a text

solely and exclusively by the readers of it. For post-structuralist like James

Risser, the text ‘remains open to a fundamental multiplicity of meaning, which,

for all intents and purpose, must be produced’ by the reader. This way of thinking

about reading and interpretation of a text is associated with the principle of ‘the

death of the author’ (an author's intentions and biographical facts should hold no

special weight in determining an interpretation of their writing) and which is

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often attributed to poststructuralist philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Gilles

Deleuze and Jacques Derrida.

Here it is important to understand that there are theoretical differences between

reading, interpretation and appropriation of a text. It is another matter that in

practice all of them may coincide with each other. A reading is an effort to ‘make

sense of’ a text. However, this expression is deliberately ambiguous in meaning

and allows for the probability that different readers might attempt to make sense

of the same text in different ways. For example, the reading might relate to an

effort to ‘discover’ some meaning, which is assumed to be already there in a

particular text. It might also mean to do with an effort to ‘give’ a certain meaning

to a text or to impose a certain meaning upon it. These are quite different types of

efforts but both of them could be said to fall under the notion of reading.

Therefore, any account of a particular text by readers can be considered as a

possible or plausible reading of it. There is nothing called the misreading of any

text. This is the crucial difference between a reading and an interpretation of a

text. Interpretations aim to get at something which is assumed by the interpreter

to lie within the text itself. This ‘something’ is presumed to be the meaning of the

text in question. To interpret a text means an attempt to recover or perhaps

discover the meaning of a text and this attempt may or may not be successful.

Those who claim to have done ‘interpretation of a text’ believe that they are

seeking the ‘truth’ about a text’s meaning. It is expected that readings which are

also interpretations can be either true or false; correct or incorrect. They can be

assessed as being either closer to or further away from the true or correct account

of the meaning of a text. In principle, therefore, opposing interpretations of texts

can be evaluated on the basis of an appeal to significant empirical evidence and

disputes between interpreters might be resolved by rational argument and debate.

Those interpretations which are farther from the meanings of a text can be called

as the misinterpretation of texts, even if we cannot talk about the misreading of

them. Quentin Skinner has given the impression that in his view the only

legitimate way to read a text is to interpret it. Unlike an interpretation, an

appropriation is a selective reading of a text. The purpose of offering an

appropriation of a text might be to persuade somebody to act in a certain way. In

this process, the ideas of the author of a text are taken up by appropriators and

used by them for purposes of their own. In such readings, the interest and

concerns of the appropriator is reflected and not those of the author. Those who

appropriate texts are ready to plunder them for ideas which they find useful and

sometimes present to the world as their own ideas and sometimes as the ideas of

author of the text in question. When using author’s name, appropriators are

exploiting author's authority in the field and at the same time, appropriators

distort the meaning of these ideas by ignoring the way in which they were used

and understood by the author. Appropriators have neither interest in the

intentions of the author nor in the truth. Their readings are so inconsiderate,

biased, partial, selective, unbalanced and one-sided, that it would be incorrect to

call them interpretations of the text. However, it must be accepted that in practice

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Interpreting A Text

it might be difficult to establish whether a reading of a text is an invalid

interpretation of it or an appropriation of it.

In the debate of whether text is important or the context, Terence Ball feels both

are important. For him, even to know what is “unintended” by the author, we

must know “intention of the author”. Also, a text has a life beyond the author, a

reader also inscribes meaning to a text (in the same context as that of author and

in a changed context). Reading text is a merging of two visions, that is, vision of

the author and vision of the reader. This merging point is called by Gadamer as

“the fusion of horizons”. For Ball this fusion can be both illuminating and

confusing. Illuminating for the reflection of vastness of the distance covered by

the text from author to the reader. Confusing because it is not necessary that

visions of author and reader must have a meeting point. Alan Bryan agrees with

Ball when he emphasises that both authorial intention and text’s own life are

important. Bryan cites the case of Locke being considered as an early forerunner

of feminism for his work Two Treatises. Locke might be surprised with this title

but it will be a mistake to think that Locke’s writings never inspired successive

feminist academia and activism. There is nothing necessarily wrong or

illegitimate in taking the view that arguments constructed for one purpose may

subsequently be put to some altogether different use. Another example cited by

Bryan is that of Antonio Gramsci’s work. In re-describing the Communist Party

as the ‘modern Prince’, Gramsci adapted and made creative use of what he took

to be Machiavelli’s notion of a ruthless and all powerful principe. On Gramsci’s

reading, the Communist Party, like Machiavelli’s Prince, must be prepared to use

guile, cunning, deceit and violence to achieve worthy ends. By substituting

‘Party’ for ‘prince’, Gramsci was able to adapt Machiavelli’s arguments to a

more modern and distinctly different context. Thus, Bryan concludes that both

author’s intention and life of a text in itself are important.

Two integral ingredients of interpretation of a text are (a) intelligibility, that is,

audience’s standards and (b) legitimacy, that is, audience’s acceptance. If one

fails to take into account one’s audience’s standards in terms of their language,

beliefs and circumstances, then the author runs the risk of seeing one’s work as

unintelligible or illegitimate by the audience. Political theory and the texts in

political theory are significant wherein both matters of logic and language are

equally considered. Political theory texts carry matters of both political action

and philosophical enquiry together. It leads to political innovation and conceptual

change. It is in part this hybrid nature of political theory that makes its history or

any particular episode therein so difficult to interpret and so useful to study and

reflect upon.




the unit.

1. What do you understand by textual and contextual reading?

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2. Explain two integral ingredients of interpretation.

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1.4 MEANINGS AND CONTEXTS

Meanings change as contexts change. For example, Filmer’s Patriarcha (1680)

which believed that all kings are Adam’s heir and were absolute and divine rulers

was challenged by John Locke’s book Two Treatises of Government (1689).

Locke said that absolute monarchy is not acceptable and it is not possible to

prove that all kings are Adam’s heir. Even in the situation wherein both Filmer

and Hobbes spoke about political obligation, the nature of ruler was different. For

Filmer, the political obligation was justified in the name of divinity of the king.

For Hobbes, political obligation was justified in the name of contract done

between men for self-preservation of individuals. As facts are dynamic, no

reading is innocent. They are filtered through and coloured by other reader’s

readings. There is a need for regular reappraisal of one’s own received values and

validity of interpretations. There can be plurality of theories. Lakatos called it

“three-cornered fight”.

Finding truth is a process of constant validation and falsification. However, it is

not necessary that the process of finding truth is always done in fairness. When

the process of finding truth relies on fairness, then the product is called

scholarship. When the process of finding truth is based on partisan cause, then

the product is called politics. For Terence Ball, scholarship is not politics and

politics is not scholarship.

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Therefore, we can conclude that both origin of writing and receiving by readers

are equally important. Authorial intentions are important but they are not the end

in itself. Intentions can be discovered or rediscovered in later stage also. Any text

may have unintended consequences (unexpected by the author at the time of

writing). Reading is a problem-solving activity wherein the reader connects the

content of the text with contemporary issues. Texts are alive only when they are

carefully and critically reappraised rather than blindly worshipped. No single

method of interpretation can address all the issues. It depends upon the context.

Interpretive problems can be witnessed in any school of thought. Every author

and reader has their own strengths and accordingly each will do justice to the

text.




the unit.

1. What is the difference between scholarship and politics?

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1.5 DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF INTERPRETATION

Humans continuously interpret contexts and texts around them. Students of

political theory read and decide between rival interpretations of political texts. As

a subject constantly fascinated with its classic texts, political theory requires an

interpretation of not just the ‘words’ but also the ‘meaning’ of these classic texts.

Such an interpretation is essential to understand the statements made long ago in

Constantly changing data

Changing

Interpretation 2

Changing

Interpretation 1

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different contexts and also to make them familiar and accessible to the present.

As stated in the beginning itself, interpretation may sometimes lead to

misunderstandings and there is nothing called a neutral standpoint from which to

analyse a text. What it does uphold is the simple fact that there can be no

understanding without interpretation.

Different schools of interpretation have been discussed below.

1.5.1 Marxian Interpretation

The Marxian approach places ‘class’ and ‘its inequalities’ as the focus of

analysis. For Marxists, conventional ideas hide the damning reality of class

inequalities and paint false pictures of society’s fairness and justness. The task of

textual interpretation then is to expose the raw reality hidden behind the rosy

façade. The goal is to undo the fabric of illusion woven by the mainstream point

of view and reveal the true hidden social and economic reality. Crawford Brough

Macpherson’s The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (1962) is an

important Marxian interpretation that projects Locke as an extraordinarily clever

propagandist for capitalism. Macpherson understands Locke’s discussion of

private property in the Second Treatise — where he proclaims property as that

part of nature which one mixes with one’s own labour — as a justification of the

institution of private property. Marxists see all theories as ideological masks.

How and why their own theory must be exempted is not explained (or

explainable). Predominantly, Marxian interpretations also tend to ignore impact

of identities based on other power structures (other than class) like caste, gender,

sexualities, religion, region and race in shaping reality. Even when they recognise

other identities, they are placed as secondary in shaping reality.

1.5.2 Totalitarian Interpretation

The rise of fascism and communism encouraged investigation into the

philosophical roots of modern totalitarianism. The roots, once one starts looking

for seems to be present everywhere. Plato’s philosopher king, Machiavelli’s

ruthless prince, Hobbes’s all-powerful sovereign/Leviathan and Rousseau’s all-

wise legislator, all seem to be forerunners to totalitarian rulers of the 20th

century. A well-known work of this perspective is Karl Popper’s The Open

Society and its Enemies (1945). He construes Hegel’s remark ‘what is rational is

actual and what is actual is rational’ in the “Preface” to the Philosophy of Right

as justifying everything that is now real (or “actual”) exists by necessity and must

thus, be reasonable and good (“rational”). Hegel is seen as giving his

philosophical approval to the proto-totalitarian Prussian state which existed at

that time. A closer look, however, discloses Popper’s misinterpretation. Hegel

uses the word wirklich which translates as ‘actual’ and means ‘realised potential’,

and not what is “real”, as Popper supposes. Hegel’s remark would mean: “What

is rational is that which fully actualizes its potential; and that which fully

actualizes its potential is rational.” It is, then, not the sinister justification of

everything that is real (one of which was totalitarian Prussia). This example

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highlights the danger of appropriating a text (both at conceptual and linguistic

levels) which we discussed earlier.

1.5.3 Psychoanalytic Interpretation

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, argued that our actions are driven

by desires and fears which we may not be consciously aware of (state of

unconsciousness as important). This approach puts forward the idea that

psychoanalytic interpretations can be applied to all sorts of texts including those

of political theory. This treatment has been given to thinkers like Machiavelli,

Burke, Luther and Gandhi. An example of this approach is Bruce Mazlish’s

James and John Stuart Mill (1975). Mill’s On Liberty is cast as a personal appeal

and a declaration of independence from his father who was exceptionally strict.

Mill might not have consciously envisioned, it but his unconscious desires

shaped his work. He also had an affair with a married woman named Harriet.

Given that his mother’s name was also Harriet, this coincidence fits perfectly

with what is known in psychoanalytic theory as the Oedipus complex.

Expectedly, Mazlish makes the most of it. Psychoanalytic interpretations, though

sometimes insightful, are speculative, impressionistic and non-falsifiable. The

approach also moves attention away from the text and onto the author which is

hardly the proper method for any attempt at textual interpretation.

1.5.4 Feminist Interpretation

This approach puts gender as the focal point of analysis and uses that vantage

point to look at political theory. The essence of this approach is reflected in

Susan Okin’s statement, “the great tradition of political philosophy consists…of

writings by men, for men, and about men”. This gap has pushed for feminist re-

readings and reappraisals of the classic works. The first phase of this approach

began in the 1960’s. Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Emma Goldman, Bentham,

Mill and Engels were singled out for their attention and homage to gender

question. A second, more radical, phase followed which sought to expose the

misogyny in the works of the greats of political theory including the ones who

had in the first phase been venerated. For example Carole Pateman highlighted in

her work The Sexual Contract how the social contract was a fraternal contract

and the welfare state was a patriarchal institution. The third phase criticised the

essentialised civic virtues of men — hunger for power, competitiveness,

rationality. It turned the public/private distinction on its head and declared the

superiority of the private realm of the family to the public realm of politics.

Feminist interpretations have been dominated by upper class, white-skinned and

educated women. To bring forth the voice of different women (as the category of

women is not monolithic) is a challenge for this school of interpretation.

1.5.5 Straussian Interpretation

This approach originates from the work of Leo Strauss who tried to locate the

eternal truth of politics in the works of Plato and other ancient and pre-liberal era

thinkers. These ‘rigourous’ works were contrasted with the ‘lenient’ works of

modern liberal thinkers. Strauss lamented the weakening of normative

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foundations in the face of the violent winds of fanaticism. His experiences as a

Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany influenced his approach. Having pointed out

the crisis, Strauss and his followers tried to trace the origins and diagnose the

maladies of liberalism, relativism, historicism and scientism. Solutions were to be

found by prudently re-reading and deciphering the real meaning in the texts of

the pre-liberal era. The Straussian approach made distinction between ‘exoteric’

and ‘esoteric’ doctrines of a text. The ‘exoteric’ disguise intended for the public

and decoding the ‘esoteric’ doctrine embedded between and hidden behind the

lines. This approach counts, on some sort of insider’s knowledge which is

available only to the initiated who in turn dismiss the uninitiated as hopelessly

ignorant. Also, it just projects that the esoteric doctrine does not correspond to

the exoteric doctrine.

1.5.6 Postmodernist Interpretation

Postmodernism arises out of the failures of grand narratives. It is a diverse

perspective shared by many different, even dissimilar, thinkers. Postmodernism

emphasises the incoherent and incomprehensible nature of the world and resists

any attempt to find continuity and unity in the human condition. It also dismisses

the idea of linear progress as merely an advance in one group’s power to

dominate the others. One of the most influential scholar of this approach is

Michel Foucault. He examines the ways in which human beings are ‘normalised’,

that is, made willing participants in their own subjugation (by power). It involves

re-reading texts from the perspective of the present and then realigning and

relocating them according to new axes so as to reveal who contributed to the

subjugation and who resisted it. Another popular scholar of this approach is

Jacques Derrida. He aims to ‘deconstruct’ or expose and criticize the arbitrariness

of claims to truth by examining various binary oppositions or dichotomies such

as knower/known, object/representation, text/interpretation, true/false. What is

proclaimed as truth, including texts, is merely a representation of a part of truth/s.

No version can claim superiority. As such, all interpretations are essentially

indeterminate. The insistence on the indeterminacy of interpretations is an

extremely cynical stance that does not advance our knowledge. But more

importantly, it legitimises or, at least, is unable to distinguish propaganda and

falsehood in the texts and thus, making it morally and epistemologically

unsatisfactory.

1.5.7 Cambridge New ‘History’

The Cambridge ‘new historians’ see textual interpretation as revealing the

historically variable problems to which particular philosophers proposed

particular answers and deny that there are eternal problems. Understanding

meaning needs that we understand the problem being addressed. Peter Laslett, in

his introduction to Locke’s Two Treatises (1960), reinstates the book to its

political and historical context. It also shows that the volume had been written

nearly a decade earlier than what was known paving the way for succeeding

reinterpretations of Locke. This method of historical investigation has been

vehemently promoted. Textbook approaches have been rejected as insufficiently

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historical. For this approach, political theory is a form of political action. It is

intended to warn, persuade, criticize and frighten. Political theorists have always

involved in propaganda and persuasion. Textual interpretation is a task of

restoring texts to the historical contexts and understanding the question(s) to

which the texts were offered as answers.

Therefore, we could see that any single method won’t suffice to get the answers

we seek. A plurality of approaches which will not burden us in the range of

questions we can ask is preferable. In adopting this pluralistic approach,

intellectual, political and linguistic contexts have to be considered. Also we have

to remember the fact that texts take a life of their own once they are published.

To concentrate solely on what the author intended in a particular text is to the

neglect of what other thinkers and readers had to say about the said text.

Interpretative enquiries are problem-driven and dynamic. We turn to texts to

clear doubts. These doubts may arise from anywhere but their interpretative

solutions must be justified by rigourous scholarly criteria. The classic works may

be kept alive through reinterpretations and reappraisals.




the unit.

1. Explain significance of interpretation in reading a text. Which school of

interpretation has impressed you the most? Describe briefly its features.

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1.6 MYTHOLOGIES OF READING A CLASSIC

TEXT

The task of the political theorists have been to study and interpret a canon of

classic texts. The classic texts contain a ‘dateless wisdom’ in the form of

‘universal ideas’. As a result of study of classic texts, Quentin Skinner feels that

we learn and benefit directly from investigating these timeless elements. These

texts possess perennial relevance. The best way to approach these texts must be

to concentrate on what each of them says about each of the fundamental

concepts. The classic texts are embedded with questions of morality, politics,

religion and social life. This means to read each of them as though it were written

by a contemporary. Focusing simply on their arguments and examining what they

have to tell us about the perennial issues. Taking them out of their contexts will

lose sight of their dateless wisdom and thereby, lose contact with the value and

purpose of studying them. There have been certain mythologies existing when it

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comes to reading classic texts. In the following paragraphs, we are going to

discuss some of them.

1.6.1 Mythology of Doctrines

The most insistent mythology is generated when the historian is set by the

expectation that each classic writer will be found to articulate some doctrine on

each of the topics regarded as constitutive of its subject. It is a perilously short

step from being under the effect (however unconsciously) of such a paradigm to

‘finding’ a given author’s doctrines on all of the mandatory themes. This

mythology is called ‘mythology of doctrines’ and it takes several forms. The first

is the risk that scattered and incidental remarks are converted into doctrines

regarding the mandatory themes of the subject. Both (a) ‘intellectual

biographies,’ where the focus is on the varied ideas of individual thinkers and (b)

‘histories of ideas,’ where the focus is on the idea itself as stated by many varied

thinkers, are vulnerable to this kind of mythology.

In the case of ‘intellectual biographies,’ a certain view or doctrine may be

attributed to a writer based simply on some chance similarity of terminology

even if s/he cannot have in principle meant to define. For example, Marsilius of

Padua is accredited with the doctrine of separation of powers because of some

remarks on the executive role of a ruler compared with the legislative role of a

sovereign people. But the doctrine’s origin was drawn to the Romans about two

centuries after his death and would grow fully only in the 17th century. Also, a

doctrine may be too freely extracted from or read into simple statements. The

author might have simply stated the principle (even believed in it) without

intending to articulate a doctrine out of it. For example, John Locke is attributed

with the ‘doctrine’ of ‘the political trust’ based on some scattered remarks.

In the second case, that is, regarding ‘histories of ideas,’ there is a trend to

embody an ideal type of a given doctrine as an entity, an organism almost, with a

history of its own. Such reification, creates a form of non-history of the doctrine

where its history and history of the writer is erased. For example, in the case of

doctrine of separation of powers, from Marsilius to Montesquieu there is erasure

of history of the evolution of the doctrine. It is presented as given doctrine. Also,

endless debates are generated about the incidence and emergence of a given idea

in certain writers or during certain times.

In following the mythology of doctrine, there is a possibility that a historian may

supply a theorist with a doctrine appropriate to the subject from its scattered

remarks. Historian may speculate about a writer’s opinions regarding a topic

which the writer did not even consider seriously. A historian may also denounce

a writer for omitting some doctrine which historian thinks is integral to the

subject. For example, Plato’s Republic is criticized for ‘omitting’ the ‘influence

of public opinion’ and Locke’s Second Treatise for omitting ‘all references to

family and race.’ A historian may criticize a writer for not being

comprehensive/systematic enough. The assumption here is that the writer

intended its writing to be systematic. For example, Machiavelli’s Prince is often

attacked as ‘extremely one-sided and unsystematic’.

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1.6.2 Mythology of Coherence

The historian’s preconceptions and expectations also leads to second type of

mythology, a mythology of coherence. The first historical absurdity is the

tendency to find or even supply, by filling in gaps, a coherence to a text which

may actually not be present. For example, in reading Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj,

historians and political scientists try to bring in a coherence across all his

writings. Whereas Gandhi himself never tried for such coherence. Similarly, Karl

Marx is criticised for lack of coherence across his writings. While criticising,

historians and scholars forget that certain ideas evolve and reform over the

lifespan of an author and break in ideas is normal in such circumstances.

The mythology of coherence assume that it may be quite proper in the interests of

extracting a message of higher coherence from an author’s work, to discount the

statements of intention which the author itself may have made about what s/he

was doing, or even to discount whole works which would impair the coherence

of the author’s system. For example, Locke who set out in the beginning to

defend an authoritarian position is portrayed as a ‘liberal’ political theorist for the

sake of coherence. It is also common for historians to see contradictions in a

writer’s work as barriers which should be accounted for to fit in the coherent

system.

1.6.3 Mythology of Prolepsis

The mythology of prolepsis is characterised by a description of a work, being

influenced by its significance and in such a way that it leaves no place for an

analysis of what the author actually meant to say. This often happens when the

historian is interested in the retrospective significance of the work s/he is

analysing.




the unit.

1. Define classic texts. Discuss mythology of doctrine.

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1.7 LET US SUM UP

After discussing the conceptual difference between reading, interpretation and

appropriation of a text, it is clear to us that in practice all three ways merge

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together in the process of understanding a text. Similarly, after looking into the

debate of whether author’s intention in writing a text is important or an

independent life of a text is important, we have understood that life of a text is

unpredictable. Sometimes a text is known for its author’s intentions and

sometimes a text attains its own meaning and life from readers. In this chapter it

has been emphasised that the act of interpretation is integral and indispensable in

understanding a text. We discussed different schools of interpretation to realise

uniqueness of each school and simultaneously understood that no school is in a

position to answer all problems for all times. No school is perfect and complete

in itself. It is in judicious application of these approaches that a better

understanding of a text is developed. At the end of this chapter we discussed

what counts as a classic text and how certain mythologies are developed in

understanding these classic texts.

1.8 REFERENCES

Ball, Terence. (1995). Reappraising Political Theory. Oxford University Press:

Oxford.

Ball, Terence. (2004). “History and the Interpretation of Texts,” in Handbook of

Political Theory, ed. Gerald F. Gaus and Chandran Kukathas, London: SAGE

Publications, pp. 18–30.

Burns, Tony. (2011). “Interpreting and appropriating texts in the history of

political thought: Quentin Skinner and poststructuralism,” in Contemporary

Political Theory, volume 10, pp. 313–331.

Skinner, Quentin. (1969). “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas.”

History and Theory 8 (1). Wesleyan University: Wiley, pp. 3–53.

1.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

EXERCISES


1. According to Gadamer, the world we live in and the texts we read are

already invested with meanings. For him, the act of interpretation is

contextual and dynamic. According to him, in the art of interpretation we

learn the art of living the life of a human being.


1. In the textual reading intention of the author is given primacy. The

meaning of a text is something which is created by its author and given to

a text in the process of writing it. This process of creating meaning and

giving it to a text is carried out intentionally by the author. In the

contextual reading, the primary importance is given to the context in

which the text was originally written and the context in which the reader

reads it.

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Reading and

Interpreting A Text

2. Two integral ingredients of interpretation of a text are (a) intelligibility,

that is, audience’s standards and (b) legitimacy, that is, audience’s

acceptance.


1. When the process of finding truth relies on fairness, then the product is

called scholarship. When the process of finding truth is based on partisan

cause, then the product is called politics.


1. Political theory requires an interpretation of not just the ‘words’ but also

the ‘meaning’ of these classic texts. Such an interpretation is essential to

understand the statements made long ago in different contexts and also to

make them familiar and accessible to the present. Whichever school of

interpretation impressed you the most, explain the reason for it and give

its basic features.


1. The classic texts contain a ‘dateless wisdom’ in the form of ‘universal

ideas’. These texts possess perennial relevance. Mythology of doctrine:

The most insistent mythology is generated when the historian is set by the

expectation that each classic writer will be found to articulate some

doctrine on each of the topics regarded as constitutive of his subject.

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Documents

UNIT 1 TEXT AND CONTEXT - eGyanKosh